Scituate man remembered as generous, charismatic

Corey Griffin, 27, of Scituate, drowned early Saturday morning after diving from a building on Straight Wharf into the waters of Nantucket Harbor. Friends on Sunday said he always put family first, was a great story teller and made everyone feel like his best friend.

SCITUATE – Whether it was on the pier with the fishermen in Scituate, in a board meeting with executives in Manhattan or in the locker room of any South Shore hockey rink, friends of Corey Griffin say he was kind-hearted, magnetic and at home.

“Corey had the unique gift of being able to connect with anyone, and no matter who you were or what you were doing, he made you feel like he had been waiting forever to see you again,” longtime friend Michael Greeley said Sunday.

Corey Griffin, 27, of Scituate, drowned early Saturday morning after diving from a building on Straight Wharf into the waters of Nantucket Harbor.

“He lived so much in 27 years, and he had a love of life that was contagious. He was a source of joy and a gift to all of us,” Greeley, of Scituate, added. “There will never be another person like Corey Griffin.”

Nantucket police responded to 44 Straight Wharf at 2 a.m. Saturday after receiving reports that a man was missing in the harbor after diving into the water from a building. Witnesses told police the man, later identified as Griffin, floated to the surface after jumping, but then went underwater again, Nantucket police said in a statement.

An off-duty lifeguard who was working nearby jumped into the harbor and recovered Griffin, who was pronounced dead at Nantucket Cottage Hospital around 3 a.m., police said.

It was a sunny, yet somber morning in Third Cliff on Sunday as dozens of friends and relatives gathered at the family’s oceanfront home to grieve the loss of Griffin, who friend Anthony Aiello called “unbelievably loyal and selfless.”

“Instantaneously, people had a connection with him,” Aiello, of Braintree, said.

Referencing the theory that any two people are connected through six or fewer relationships, he went on to say, “If it’s six degrees of Kevin Bacon, then it’s two degrees of Corey Griffin.”

“There are easily 50 people who would tell you Corey Griffin is their best friend,” friend Tom Greeley added. “No one who met him could ever forget him. He was amazingly easy to get along with.”

Griffin attended Thayer Academy in Braintree and the Taft School in Watertown, Conn., spent a year at Boston College and graduated from Babson College in Wellesley. He was working on the founding team of the Risk Assistance Network and Exchange in New York City after making a name for himself at Bain Capital.

Friends talked about how Griffin embodied the saying “family first,” and adored his younger brother and sister, Michael, 26, and Casey, 23, and parents, Robert and Cathleen, both Scituate natives.

Page 2 of 2 - Griffin grew up on hockey. Friends recall a talented athlete and a notorious leader who valued every teammate and coach he encountered.

He found joy in giving back and he was drawn to anything involving the ocean, from Scituate to Nantucket – where he had plans over the weekend to attend two charity events to benefit Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, research and the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club.

Family friend Steve Greeley said Griffin called his father Friday evening to say he had helped raise $100,000 for the fight against ALS, which his friend, former Boston College baseball player Pete Frates, suffers from. Frates is credited with starting the ice bucket challenge.